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TechnoratiA Hunger for National Purpose
Let's talk about us.
Not as in you and me but, rather, as in common cause.
I've been thinking about ''us'' for a few days, ever since I happened upon a message board for sports fans following the NBA playoffs. The conversation was what you'd expect -- fans of underdog teams arguing that, while other people may not believe in ''us,'' all ''we'' need to do is box out, get back on defense, and ''we'' can prove ''our'' doubters wrong.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but none of the people throwing around those variations of the first person plural pronoun is competing in these playoffs. Not a rebound will they snatch, not a bounce pass will they catch. They are accountants, doctors, cabbies, cops, bellmen, barkeeps and others whose closest brush with athletic glory comes in weekend wars waged at the park followed by liberal applications of Bengay.
I came away struck, as I often am, by this singular ability of sports to make people say ''we.'' It happens much less often in other areas of civic life. No one says ''we'' when they talk about homelessness or hunger, no ''our'' enters the discussion of fatherless families or abortion rights, ''us'' is a stranger to the debate over failing schools and crime. Those conversations are framed by words like ''them'' and ``they.''
I have no bone to pick with sports. Still, I find myself thinking a healthier society would find common cause beyond the ball field and the basketball court, would regard working toward great and ambitious goals as a civic obligation. Am I the only one who remembers a time when rallying the people together was considered the very embodiment of leadership?
That's not to suggest earlier generations were all marble men of selfless good. HBO's John Adams miniseries and Eric Burns' 2006 book, Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism, provide fresh reminders -- as if any are needed -- that pettiness, backbiting and smallness of vision are hardly new to American politics.
Yet, when you remember Abraham Lincoln calling for men to save the union, Franklin Roosevelt's demand for courage in the face of Depression, Lyndon Johnson's declaration of a War on Poverty, John Kennedy's audacious challenge to go to the moon, and then try to remember the last time any modern-day leader asked us to pull together, sacrifice together, in the name of some vital cause greater than any one of us, well . . . you come up empty.
Instead, we've had George H.W. Bush denigrating the ''vision thing,'' and Bill Clinton building that bridge to the 21st century. Sept. 11 seemed to promise such a moment, except that when people asked how they could pitch in, they were told to go shopping.
This is not sacrificing for ''us.'' It is not pulling together for ''we.'' But again, we don't say those words so much anymore. We say ''them'' and ''they'' and ''red'' and ''blue'' and if that has been politically useful for some of us, it has come at a cost for all of us: fragmentation, polarization, balkanization . . . disconnection.
Small wonder Barack Obama has been able to build a political movement on a simple promise to bring people together. Small wonder John McCain has lately been calling people to ''sacrifice for a cause greater than yourself.'' They sense it, too, I think: a hunger for national purpose.
To meet that hunger is not to magically erase disagreements and fault lines. But it just might allow us to be grounded again in the understanding that true nationhood requires there be something that surmounts those differences. Our founders knew this, which is why the first person plural pronoun one finds on sports message boards is also the first word in the first sentence of the U.S. Constitution.
You remember. It begins with, ``We the people.''
--lpitts@miamiherald.com
Copyright 2008 Miami Herald Media Co.
35 Comments so far
Show AllWhen you start talking about "all for one" you get the conservative response that it sounds like socialism and communism. They claim to believe that if everyone just takes care of themselves, everything will be all right. They fail to see the zero sum nature of limited resources. There is enough for all our needs but never enough for some people's greed.
The only problem with that for the mainstream media (which is a lot of things, but not mainstream) is, start saying "We're all one", and some people are liable to start asking: "... but why are we then so different in opportunities?" and other injustices.
Rallying around "We're all us" is tantamount to revolution under the prevailing differences.
Saying "We're all US", the media'd have to imply: "...except the niggers, the spics, the chinks, the jews, the aliens, the poor, the gays, the young, the radicals, the rebellious, the dope-smokers, the contrarians, the others..." etc.
frank 1569 -- good posting!
I focus on that fact that it's not as simple a problem as 'the greedy' vs. 'the rest of us.' As you implicitly acknowledge in your post, Greedism (a mental disorder to be sure) has now even managed to infect huge numbers of its most obvious victims. And this fuller fall from day-to-day common sense has happened in no small measure because Greedism has also become sanctified by the dominant church religion, Christianity [itself, now largely co-opted by the pseudo-Christian Religious Right.]
Thus, Greedism has [also] displaced what used to sometimes operate in the USA as a kind of meta-political Moral Conscience: The 'Do Unto Others...' values of the Christian Social Gospel, and/or its secular-equivalent values found in The Enlightenment's norms.
It's an easily fatality for the US Body Politic to have become so metastatically-diseased. And I think it's directly analogus to an individual human body being infected by an agent that disables its immune system: viz, a political version of AIDS-Related Complex, or AIDS itself, now disabling body politic immune system: Conscience.
Many individuals are now surviving with ARC/AIDS, because the disease process was finally, adequatley identified and treatments were devised to challenge its otherwise fatal outcome.
But how can sufficient numbers of our society's members now come to see and admit that their society suffers from a body politic analogue of AIDS? Especially given our corrupted mass communications media and the resulting corruption of truth standards on the part of so many perceptually-deracinated individuals?
This is the problem we 'reformers' need to give more thought to.
All these may be a solvable problems, but I think they will only be so by way of insights and mechanisms that go far beyond any current analyses and actions. Frankly, for the moment, I personally remain stumped.
Ken Potter: "America, both North and South are after all, named after a person - Amerigo Vespucci."
Thanks for the response, but I was more referring to "America" as a person. You hear it all the time in the media... "America like xyz"... or "America supports the troops"... or "America cares about it's farmers"... As if the entity of "America" has a persona of it's own.
bojanglesA1: "best for 90% of americans to flee to Canada… especially families and go to a conservative province…"
Oh God no! Please don't.
Jimminy Cricket. What a buch of fol-de-rol about nothing. If you asked 100 people where America was 99 would say the United States. Simple fact always trumps needless obfuscation.
We need a National purpose because a "golbal" purpose is so far in the future your great grandchildren's grandchildren won't see it.
The problem is now and what we lack is leadership. Does anyone think any of these three can lead? I'm just not sure.
All the fiel liberal Democrats are in a panic that they soon may have to be the loyal defenders of Hillary. The simple solution is just to give up on this charade and get the hell out of the DP. Obama is no great shakes either.
To find the "We" that one belongs to is the purpose of life after one is violently ejected from the womb. Most of the time, the sense of belonging one finds is an illusion depending on the lack of true knowledge of the other party's mind. As Buddha told us so long ago(you'd think we'd have learned it by now), Impermanence, suffering, and dissatisfaction are the hallmarks of existence. There can be no natonal purpose, because the nation is a poorly-perceived, constantly-changing abstraction. By the way, I'd like to see Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns win the championship this year. They are fun to watch.
Unbridled greed ("free" market) kills any "us" that rears it's naive head. Corporatism/fascism won't allow there to be an "us." We can't react to the "world as toilet" right in front of our faces. We are led by self-interested worms. Worms don't have vision.
to give purpose to their own lives
Sports, military almost anything, people are trying to put a "I AM PART OF THE TEAM" or fulfilment back in their lives. I find after 911 it was an almost everyone out for themselves survival as all of a sudden OUR GOV CAN'T PROTECT US ANYMORE. Now it is I have an American flag pin on my coat so I am part of the team. BUT I just lost my job that is done by some guy in Mexico now and my house and my marriage, but I have this flag on my coat that says I am part of the team, an American that rings so hollow now. With the way the USA is heading it has turned into survival of the fittest and who has a job that can't be outsourced.
Nationalism is a powerful force for uniting people, but always utimately against other people, no matter how noble it seems at first. In any case, the rest of the world will not sleep very well if the USA finds any more national purpose than it already has!
We do not need another national purpose, we need an international purpose, and a political party that embodies it! Don't fall for the parsing BS - all humans are the same. Nationalism has long outlived its usefulness to human growth. These days it is no more than a cover for scoundrels and a diversion for fools.
I am afraid that ever since Reagan declared the equivalent of "greed is good" in the early 80s people have been on a ME binge. If you want to get people to work together, you have to show them what is in it for them.
It is doing good and doing well. Saving money and saving the planet. People want to know what is in it for them, or they have no interest. I know that sound cynical, but look what has happened during the 80s and after and you might start to see my point.
Back2basics
Nice post,
And if you subscribe to the overriding conspiracy of the Illuminati elite, then it starts making a bit more sense. Also,
Namaste, and andersdl..
from a financial perspective, the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act of 1933, in 1999, by the great..i mean snake.. Bill Clinton (allowing Brokerage houses and Investment banks to basically intermingle business) has already started to have serious consequences on the American public (i.e buying power), not to mention the just beginning food crises around the globe..
best for 90% of americans to flee to canada...especially families and go to a conservative province... the voters who voted for hillary proves too many people in america has been dumded down so much that there will be always the corp robber barons making slaves out of we the people
..
seeing that hillary got that many votes speaks volumns.. there is no HOPE in this corporate controlled system of brainwashing to make slaves out of americans...and america is a magnet to draw the worlds most corrupt and greedy to come here and make the slaves in more misery so they can also get rich... america is fast becoming a third world country..
the clinton yrs in power was about SETTING us UP for all this.. with their nafta and gatt bringing to america ... THAT set this up for all of 90% of americans to be harmed...... and then hillary did it again with voting for this war for the robber barons again to hurt the 90% of americans...
the clintons work for the robber barons to make sure americans are in slavery!! and their voters are the types that would elect hitler even after knowing what hitler has done.. they are brainwashed so strongly by the corp evil.. that there is no hope here ... destruction will be the ONLY way that solves this problem.. so best to get away and maybe come back AFTER the destruction..
elmysterio, you reminded me of an incident which occurred many years ago regarding using the word "America," to say where one is from.
I was taking a crash course in Spanish, where I lived for almost 8 years, and on the first day of class, the teacher was asking each student where they were from. When my turn came to tell the class where I was from, I said, "America." At this point the teacher stopped me and asked, "which one?"
Only then did it dawn on me that there is a North, Central, and South America, with its many countries. Since then, I have always remembered to say I was from the USA.
But I agree that we shouldn't waste too much time on this point, and focus on the substance of the article. For me, the writer brought up some interesting points and it made me think.
I rarely post in response to these types of articles because there is no solution that I can put into words. All I know is how little I know, and the little I do know tells me that the USA has been going in a bad direction since Reagan.
I enjoy reading any article which forces me to think about things. Whether I agree with what is written is not important, nor is how a writer choses to write of any importance to me. What is important is the substance in an article and the fact that it makes me think about the topic a writer choses to write about.
I can't offer any solutions that we don't already know. "We" need to get back to basics and start treating each other better and caring for people rather than things. There are many paths to this destination and I do my best each day to simply be a good person and teacher. I try to help whenever I can. As I said, we all know what to do, and each of us is in a different position and can help in our own way if we care enough.
I know the chances of making this country what we are taught to believe it is, are small and won't happen quickly unless there is some event which causes us all to say, "We've had enough of this already" in a manner in which those holding the reigns of power begin to fear "we the people."
90% of americans would be better off if they fled to canada......
the clinton yrs in power was about SETTING us UP for all this.. with their nafta and gatt bringing to america ... THAT set this up for all of 90% of americans to be harmed...... and then hillary did it again with voting for this war for the robber barons again to hurt the 90% of americans...
the clintons work for the robber barons to make sure americans are in slavery!!
In the 1960's, America fought a major war in SE Asia and, the very same decade, FLEW TO THE MOON! None of which stopped Johnson from declaring a War on Poverty.
What changed? This countries federal government is broke, thats what. Since 1980, low taxes on the rich mean our government simply can't afford to make claims like those made in 1960 without seeming hopelessly naive.
Yet, the country overall is even richer than it was in 1960. The MONEY for dreaming big IS THERE. Its just not anywhere the big dreamers can get to.
But, hey, did you hear they're actually building a ski resort in Dubai?? Yeah, it'll have huge platforms that can tilt at various angles and everything!!! Right there in the desert!!
That's what constitutes 'dreaming big' in Reagan/Bush-country. Ski resorts in the desert. And all the 'little people' in casino-nation need to get in is to win the lottery!!
Agreeing about what we should call ourselves - Americans, USAn's, the US populace, etc., ad infinitum - might be useful if we ever sorted out more important things, such as who really governs us, and what we stand for as a nation.
But since the politically correct term to describe us, if there IS one or COULD be one, has never been determined by any kind of collective agreement in the past, it's a pointless and totally stupid distraction to argue about it now.
The Article's author means to draw our attention to our fragmentation as a society -- a problem which is not going to be solved by resolving arguments about formal nominata.
So let's debate substance.
I think "America" has become almost fatally fragmented because of MSM-enabled elitists who control public discussion and shape public opinion, and also by the same eiltists' simultaneous ruining of the democratic electoral process by their MSM 'public legitimation' of the influence of private money in the governance process.
I think the average, tolerant, democratically-inclined citizen of this country still fails to realize how subtly misinformed they've become, and why so many things are going wrong for them, therefore.
I think the average citizen fails to see that his/her real enemy is first and foremost a hijacked home government that only pretends to act in his/her collective interest; and that it is the average 'he/she' who have also allowed this deepened hijacking to get to such a ruinous predicament without any efffective protest.
And I think that at this late stage in our diseased and dying 'democratic' body politic, any viable presidential candidate who even hints at a similar set of insights to mine above, like Barack Obama does, a little, is all we have left to affirm - short of violent revolution, which itself can now go nowhere in any case.
If a less ambiguous/fuzzy reformer, like Nader, had even half a realistic chance, we would do better to vote for him over Obama.
And for those who still care, but feel all hope is now lost under any major candidate, Nader definitely remains the logical however irrelevant choice.
I keep hoping for [even] the smidgeon of a beginning of an American turn-around by some mainstream or mainstream-marginal led action, like via a really-reforming Obama-idealized President. But frankly, my gut tells me America is now dead and gone as anything we knew it to be in the past.
I savor Leonard Pitts writings, every time in the Palm Beach Post. Always on target, thoughtful, perceptive and inspiring.
Empire is not interested in us discovering the "we".
Empire has used all sorts of methods to bury the "we".
"We" don't know who the "we" is anymore.
"WE" can change that.
Begin by joining the bandana revolution.
Wear one, tie it on your bag or your backpack, hang one from your mailbox. Show it to the rest of us so "we' know who "we" might be.
From there "we" take back what belongs to "we the people".
Remember the control that has been consolidated at the top know that keeping us unseen and divided about what we can agree upon has worked to their advantage. They don't worry about us because they don't know how many of US there are. Let's show them.
When you begin by using sports metaphors Mr. Pitts, it guarantees that I will read no further.
elmysterio
"(note: I HATE the term 'America' to refer to the United States. There's more than one country on the continent of North America… You do not have exclusive rights to the name.)"
Hi elmysterio,
The answer is simple, pure and blatant chauvanism. You guys (Canadians) have to remember you are only the tail on a big dog's butt. After, California all by itself outnumbers your entire population by four million.
"Also, another question that slightly off topic… why is the United States referred to as "America" in the context of being a 'person'?"
America, both North and South are after all, named after a person - Amerigo Vespucci.
Take care,
Ken
Juliann,
Research does show that lying has become a mainstream-acceptable value in our culture. I'm not sure but I vaguely remember a NYT story on this with emphasis on unethical business practices.
School children no longer cry when they get caught cheating. College kids cheat worse than ever. The Untruthful States of America.
There are still many good eggs out there, but as the market gets tougher our selfish Darwinian "logic" generally prevails. Consumerism breeds Materialism and envy and greed and eventually lies on top of lies.
Kudos to you, Juliann, for standing your ground versus unethical conduct in sales. I'd buy something from you.
Okay: that was meant to be "portion" and maybe there are other powerful unions besides teacher's unions.
Also, maybe there are a lot of problems in our schools, but don't our schools mirror our society? If our society has problems, then what on earth would keep society's problems out of the schools?
Blaming schools and requiring 100% proficiency by 2014 is unrealistic. The consequence for "failing" schools, those schools that cannot force 100% of their students through the exact same hoop, will be shut down and replaced by money-making online schools run by Bushco. and pals. (they are allowing failure rates for schools with special ed students up to 10% of the student body).
That means if your school has 11% SPED kids in it who fail to pass the regular ed curriculum test by 2014, Bushco and McSame will shut down your school.
Inner city schools with huge absentee problems (50%+ students) can kiss it goodbye regardless of the good that happens within their walls. NCLB does not care that the other 50% who show up in the inner cities and care deeply about their education or the teachers who love them and dedicate to them every bit of energy they have...will all be left behind.
Juliann said: "That is NOT what all of America is about. Let's stop with the blatant generalizations."
So then my dear Juliann, tell me, what IS 'America' all about?
(note: I HATE the term 'America' to refer to the United States. There's more than one country on the continent of North America... You do not have exclusive rights to the name.)
Also, another question that slightly off topic... why is the United States referred to as "America" in the context of being a 'person'?
As a teacher I see the facsist move to overthrow the entire US educational system (the No Child Left Behind Act) as another cog in the fascist wheel. Reagan's 1983 horrific education report "A Nation at Risk" told Americans how bad the schools were, but the data could have easily been massaged to show how much better the schools had become.
It's as easy as lying. Most schools are still doing great things so the government should just get out of their way and let them continue. But the real goal of NCLB is to prove what the Reagan report said by setting unrealistic standards with incredibly cruel consequences. This way the facsists can privatize all the "failing" schools and make a bunch a money. Also, this would dummy-down a huge protion of the US, especially in the inner city.
Most inner city kids don't have regular transportation to take advantage of vouchers to charter schools.
Also they would bust a huge chunk of the teachers unions (America's last powerful union).
Who _s t i l l_ thinks geo_the_frog_impaler is __ S T U P I D __ ?
andersdl -- Accurately states thatThe New Deal saved the US from becoming a communist or fascist nation during the 1930's by creating policies and programs to enable national purpose.
Now that the US has dismantled … the New Deal programs … the US is looking more like the fascist threat that its citizens fought against in WWII.
It will take another New Deal to establish national purpose.
Perhaps you didn't know that the "arrangement" that actually permitted FDR to put the deal deal through was pure and simply "a deal with the devil", as COngressional support was hardly guaranteed in those Hard times.It is the largest possible _ I R O N Y _ that the _ d e a l _ was to prevent the treasonous capital punishment of many privileged bankers, politicians and investors ( like Prescott Bush, geo's grand papp ) -- that instigated the "hidden" nearly successful coup de ta documented in great detail by McCormick Dickson Hearings and Gen. Smedly Butler .
So the razor's edge separated us ( in the 30s ) from Communism & Fascism before, which was actually brought into being by EACTLY the same conspiratorial families as is NOW, and having been caught and NOT having LOST their COLLECTIVE HEADS ( attempting to assassinate FDR ) -- is history's little joke on US today.
Ha Ha
Geo_the_fascist_in_thief is born of CIA's nastiest EVER (having most likely killed JFK), who is a direct descendent and major financial supporter of both HITLER and an attempt to take over the USA in 1933-34.
¿¿¿ Perhaps if we catch them AGAIN, we can get them to agree to ANOTHER NEW DEAL ???
this nation\government\economy is temporary...perhaps human presence on earth is, as well...we all (this planet's humans) breathe the same air and drink the same water...we all share common ancestry...we all (this planet's plants and animals) exchange, via biological functions, the same atomic material...as this planet's irreplaceable atomic material is changed by human industry (in ANY country) from natural and biodegradeable to toxic and non, we have only consuming humans, including myself and those reading this, to blame...how americans ask other countries' citizens to self-deny themselves the fruits of industry they have, with envy, watched us enjoy for so long is difficult to see, but all industry and consumption must cease, or all is lost...humility (hah) might go a long way...discussions about the emptiness of consumption and the damage caused by industry, also...human nature doesn't do much to inspire hope...stop watching screens, stop driving, stop consuming...as for politics, prepare for horrific internal conflict...
we all need to live forward under entirely new, and eco-friendly, philosophy...ownership of property\manufactured 'things' is not a viable lifestyle option...how to get there? argh, humans!
Juliann - "Trust me I NEVER once heard talk like that, and if I had - that sales person would have been out of job within four, possibly five minutes max."
My mother was sold nearly a dozen life insurance policies by the same salesman for one company. Her mind was starting to go at the time, and he took advantage. The company took advantage by allowing such a thing.
Another salesman sold her a water softener costing over $5,000, made for a large home. She lived in a singlewide mobile home.
I could go on and on about the "deals" she was sold by salesmen taking advantage.
So don't just assume, because you never ran into it, that this sort of thing doesn't happen regularly. And I'm sure some of those salesmen who scammed my mother so thoroughly didn't gloat or make such comments as #1 poster stated.
Change your outlook from 'to' the other to 'with' the other.
We are all One and more than a National Purpose it must be a Global Purpose.
Thank you for this article to help remind "us" how far we've grown apart(and hopefully change our course). The easiest way to continue with bad politics and war is to create the belief that we are different from them.
I would recommend a short film titled,"The ultimate lecture:
ANTHROPOLOGY 101
......it's the end of the Earth, no less"
http://www.comeclean.org.uk/articles.php?articleID=301
The New Deal saved the US from becoming a communist or fascist nation during the 1930's by creating policies and programs to enable national purpose.
Now that the US has dismantled many of the New Deal programs and policies that enabled national purpose (while keeping some of the New Deal programs and policies that have become pure special interest pork), the US is looking more like the fascist threat that its citizens fought against in WWII.
It will take another New Deal to establish national purpose.
But who gets to be part of "us"? Look at all the elitist talk by intellectuals; do you honestly think they include "poor people" in "us"? The class divide is so wide. Disparity in incomes needs to be a major "us" issue!
How do we go from "my girlfriend's ex said this" to "That's what America is all about"? I have worked with sales people for most of the last 20 years. I traveled with them from one company for four years. I helped host customers. Trust me I NEVER once heard talk like that, and if I had - that sales person would have been out of job within four, possibly five minutes max.
That is NOT what all of America is about. Let's stop with the blatant generalizations.
My girl friend's ex-husband used to be a salesman, a salesman of many different products. She told me that this is how they talked among themselves: "I fucked that customer right up the ass" and other equally colorful expressions. THAT is the national purpose. That's what America is all about, especially right now. Steal it all! And if it's nailed down, pull the nails out with your teeth and take it!
Yet another lovely essay that completely ignores the truth:
"We" already have a "national purpose": to be rich, no matter how unlikely that possibility is for 98 percent of "us."
An insatiable desire for "more" - whether it's more sex or more drugs or more MONEY - is a MENTAL PROBLEM. And until said MENTAL PROBLEM is addressed, all the pretty, inspiration words ever written will fall on deaf ears. Because ADDICTS are, indeed, deaf to all advice.
Can you imagine a smoker quitting because of an op-ed? Ever know an alcoholic that stopped drinking because of some piece he read somewhere?
Greedism is the mental disorder from which all the rest of our current problems stem, but the majority refuse to even discuss it because... why? Because we all dream of being the hedge fund asshole who "earned" $1.7 billion just last year? Because we're afraid to admit most of suffer from greedism on some level?
How does one even discuss "national purpose" when it's clear that our "leaders" only desire more profits, and are willing to screw anyone to get them and it's never enough?
Greed-a-holics do not feed the poor, build schools, clean the streets, protect the environment, wage peace, or conduct honest business relations. They're crack addicts who will kill your mom for the next fix - and then blame your mom for getting in the way of the bullet.
Let's stop with the silly dreams and calls for the impossible, and start solving the real problem first: it's the greedy who are destroying us. Period.